Yeah. So many of these 'advanced metrics' essentially just boil down to an extravagant way of stat-watching. There are aspects of them that are interesting and worth taking a look at, but i don't see a whole lot of validity in many of them.

It's not baseball, there are so many factors at play in this game.

It's stuff like the above mentioned, but also stuff like the fact that SV% while on the ice can be pretty heavily influenced by the type of scoring chances a pairing is giving up. A high SV% on ice might indicate some flukey above average goaltending...but it could also just as easily indicate that high quality scoring opportunities are being limited and a lot of weak shots from the perimeter, due to quality defensive play.

The way some of these metrics are treated like gospel around here...it's like some folks watched 'Moneyball' one too many times.

I don't think I said anywhere that it was the gospel, it was a piece of information I found interesting. I agree that it doesn't take into consideration the fact that Hamhuis plays better opposition, I didn't want to start calling Ballard and Tanev sheltered because I figured that would start a bigger ****storm. Last season behind one of the best tandems in the NHL Ballard got a .937 save% and Hamhuis got .927. So all I was trying to say was that I don't think .982 is sutainable and want people to keep that in mind if that pairing starts being on the ice for some more goals against.

Also these numbers are 5 v 5 so PP and PK aren't taken into consideration.